


You haven't seen anything yet

by SennyriNamis23



Series: Aliit ori'shya tal'din [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 20:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9784970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SennyriNamis23/pseuds/SennyriNamis23
Summary: Nlusta'ceasa'lirnimu moves to Nar Shaddaa with her parents and older brother. When things go terribly wrong, Staceasa has to get herself back on her feet and find a purpose in this life. She finds an unlikely solace in bounty hunting.





	

“Hurry, Staceasa, the ship is going to take off soon!” an older boy, no more than eight or nine years old, called.

A three-year-old blue-skinned girl hobbled around the corner, draped in old cloths and a helmet too big for her head, “Wait for me!”

As soon as she was close enough, the boy picked her up and sat her in front of him in their mock cockpit made of old packing materials.

“The pirates are right behind us!” he urged, guiding her hands to the makeshift steering mechanism, making the noises of an engine powering up as he pretended to flick some buttons.

Staceasa laughed as he did it, trying to look focused on her very important job of steering the ship out of its hangar.

“Careful of that ship!” he said excitedly, pointing to nothing in particular, but urging her to use her imagination.

“Pew pew!” she replied through giggles, pretending to shoot the pursuer.

He took her shoulders and shook her as he made noises of explosions, “What a shot, kiddo! Alright, let’s get out of here!”

He made more humming noises as Staceasa pretended to turn their ship around.

“Hyperspace?” she asked, looking up at his deep red eyes in excitement.

“Almost,” he answered, looking forward very seriously, “We have to break the atmosphere first.”

She nodded and followed his gaze into their ice-covered yard, “Right.”

They zoomed in and out of a dozen other ships, pirates and rivals both, zigging and zagging upwards into the dark expanses of space. 

“Now, Nellir?” she asked.

He nodded with a wink, “Now.”

She shrieked in laughter as she pressed the blue button on the makeshift dashboard, and Stanellir picked her up out of the cockpit and ran around the yard with her in his hands, making more engine noises, even though he taught her that there wasn’t any sound in space. 

“We did it!” he shouted with glee, “We got those pirates good!”

She laughed again and wrapped her arms around his neck, beginning to run out of energy, “And we saved the princess.”

He squeezed her gently, “We sure did, kiddo.”

\---

“Staceasa, my dear, are you ready? The shuttle will be here in just a moment.”

A little girl, barely more than seven or eight, with rich blue skin and deep black hair came bounding down the stairs of the family home, a suitcase nearly as big as she was in her small hands.

She looked up at her father, who had been the one to call her, “I’m ready. My things are in here.” She held up the bag proudly, even as the weight of it nearly knocked her to the ground.

Her father smiled gently, though an outsider might not have seen it in his red eyes, “That’s wonderful, Ceasa. Are your mother and brother on their way, as well?”

Staceasa nodded emphatically, “Mom is helping Stanellir with the stairs.”

The smile on her father’s face flattened as a crease of worry appeared between his eyebrows. That crease was appearing more and more often, and always when Stanellir wasn’t feeling well. Which was also more and more often these days.

The two remaining family members appeared at the stop of the stairs, a thin and relatively pale Stanellir using his mother as a support as they slowly made their way down them. Staceasa raced up the stairs to take their bags, laughing the whole way. This was all an adventure to her; the whole family was going on an extended vacation into lands beyond the Ascendancy. She imagined places with lavish ice palaces and big Thrantas and Wampas. Or she thought they were Thrantas and Wampas, but she’d never actually seen one before other than in her studies at the library. But the thought of visiting somewhere new was exhilarating, and she was excited to explore all the new places with Stanellir. He’d been reading to her adventure stories of bounty hunters and smugglers who raced through space, going from planet to planet to find treasures and lost civilizations; she’d dreamed of going in a big ship with lots of windows, watching the stars and hyperspace. It’d been so long since she and Stanellir could pretend they were pirates in the backyard, Staceasa could barely hold her excitement in about maybe meeting  _ an actual pirate _ . She wondered what sorts of stories they could tell.

Staceasa daydreamed the whole shuttle ride to the spaceport, looking out the window and watching familiar glaciers and ice formations pass by. She held her father’s hand and swung her feet dangling off the seat. 

\---

The ship was more cramped than she’d anticipated, and there weren’t any windows in the whole guest section. When she’d asked about it, her father only shook his head, saying the pilots could see, but she wasn’t allowed in the cockpit.

She turned around with a pout and sat beside Stanellir on his bed. He had a datapad in his lap, and looked up at her when she shifted the mattress.

“No luck on the stars, huh?” he asked softly. He always spoke softly these days, as if speaking was just as physically draining as running.

Staceasa shook her head.

“No worries, kiddo,” he replied, “We’ll see the stars when we dock. And the buildings on Nar Shaddaa are so tall, I hear you can practically touch the stars if you try.”

Her crimson eyes lit up, “We can  _ touch _ them?”

Stanellir nodded.

Staceasa resolved herself to wait out the next six days patiently. She could wait that long if it meant she could touch the stars later.

\---

It turned out that you actually  _ couldn’t _ touch the stars from Nar Shaddaa. You couldn’t even see them once you were inside the atmosphere.

Staceasa sat on the stairs to the family apartment, looking up at the dizzyingly high skyscrapers (another letdown; they didn’t come close to touching the sky), desperately hoping for a glance through the buildings. Nar Shaddaa was crowded and noisy and busy. Sometimes she longed for the quiet solitude she remembered on Csilla, but they’d lived on Nar Shaddaa for five years now and she was used to the disappointment. She sighed and closed her eyes, longing for a place she’d never been.

There were plenty of places on Nar Shaddaa to learn if you were willing to wade through the muck and drunken idiots on the sides of the roads. There were libraries and even a few universities - though they usually required a special photo ID - where Staceasa could spend most of her days, reading on space and space travel. She’d learned to speak Basic and Huttese in her time there, and could recognize a dozen other languages even if she couldn’t understand it. She loved listening to the lilting drawl of Mando’a, the easy way they had of camaraderie that permeated their language and their culture. But books on Mando’a were notoriously difficult to find, and she may have been an adult by Chiss standards, but she still wasn’t allowed in bars to find a Mandalorian who would teach her. So she eavesdropped on their conversations when she could, picked up a few words here and there, but mostly kept her studies to the stars.

She’d leave the house early in the morning - before the folks with the worst hangovers woke up - and weave her way through the streets to the library where she’d sit and read for a few hours. In the afternoon, she’d run errands for her parents or find someone who could pay her for an afternoon’s work doing whatever they might need. Once the sun had set, she’d pack up and head for home. Or the apartment that passed as home, anyway.

Neither of her parents ever talked about it, but it was obvious even to Staceasa that her brother was sick. They’d come with all the money they had, but they’d only planned on being there for a year or so before returning to Csilla. But even the best doctors - and the expensive ones - couldn’t figure out what plagued him. After the first year or so, her parents both had to pick up jobs, and after the third year not even that was enough to cover costs for Stanellir’s medical expenses as well as for the rest of the family to eat and sleep under a roof, so they’d moved him back home with them. They couldn’t risk moving him back to Csilla at that point, so they’d more or less become permanent residents of the Hutta moon. 

The light on the steps to their apartment flickered and Staceasa figured she should head inside; the air outside wasn’t particularly fresh, but sometimes she needed a minute to escape the overwhelming weight of her family’s depression.

“What’d you learn today, kid?” Stanellir murmured when she sat on the edge of his bed.

She shrugged, “More on hyperspace and how routes are coordinated.”

He put a cold, thin hand on her wrist, “Tell me.”

Staceasa smiled and launched into regaling him with what she’d found. Occasionally his eyes would light up and he would seem to be himself again, but the light always dimmed again. It took more energy to keep up with her than he had left in him. The irony of the younger sister who so loved hearing her brother tell her stories now regaling him with the intricacies of hyperdrives was not lost on Staceasa, though she would never admit it.

Inevitably, Stanellir would fall into a fitful sleep, and Staceasa would kiss him on the forehead before returning to her sullen parents who sat silently in the kitchen. 

“Ceasa,” Stanellir whispered as his eyes were closing, holding her wrist.

“What’s wrong, Nellir?” she asked gently, brushing some of the loose hairs from his pale face.

He paused for a moment as if he was gathering the strength to proceed, but Staceasa didn’t rush him. She rubbed his shoulder absently with her hand, remembering when he was vibrant and full of life, ready to take on whatever the galaxy threw his way. He was just a shell of himself now and she wondered if it was a life worth living.

“I love you, sister,” he finally managed, squeezing her hand.

She reached over and kissed his forehead, “I love you, too, Nellir. Get some rest.” 

They’d long given up hope that Stanellir would improve, but when she woke up the next morning and his body was still and lifeless, Staceasa still crumpled to the ground in tears.

\---

“ _ Denied _ ?” her father raged, “What do you mean,  _ denied _ ?”

The Chiss representative at the Embassy was unamused and unimpressed, “The Nlusta Clan is no longer welcome on Csilla, having been exiled on account of the actions of one of its members.”

Staceasa was still numb nearly three standard weeks after Stanellir died. She didn’t feel like she was actually awake, more like she was floating through a dream as the days passed. The library was the only place of respite for her, where she could lose herself in learning and forget for awhile that her best friend, that her brother, that her confidante wouldn’t be there when she went back to the apartment. Even now with her bags in her hands standing between her flustered and irate parents, Staceasa’s mind was far from the Embassy.

At some point she realized her mother was shaking and she shook herself back reality, trying to soothe her by rubbing her back gently. 

“Is it not enough to lose our son,” her father continued to argue, “but must we also be humiliated by this?”

The other Chiss didn’t reply; in fact, he didn’t even look up from his paperwork, as if the matter had been dismissed and no longer existed. Staceasa knew her father was more emotional than most Chiss, but it never struck her quite as much as it did whenever they stopped by the Embassy. It seemed the Csillan Embassy was the only place on Nar Shaddaa where Chiss actually congregated, like they were all offended that they might have to mix on the streets with  _ other _ alien species, and the whole place was silent save for the soft clacking of shoes on stone floors. Well, and her father’s yells.

Her father was still arguing with the representative, who still hadn’t bothered to acknowledge him. Staceasa placed her hand gently on his forearm, dragging his attention to her.

“Papa,” she said quietly, “let’s go home.”

He sighed in resignation, taking his wife and daughter gently and stalking out of the Embassy, his head held high. Staceasa admired him for that; no matter the circumstances, he was proud of who he was and where he came from. The Nlusta Clan was not one of the Ruling Families, nor was it large and politically influential - making its exile puzzling and infuriating - but they were scholars, scientists, architects. And they were a proud family if the stories her father told of her grandparents were any indication. 

As soon as the three returned home, her father was pacing the kitchen, listing possible courses of action. They couldn’t stay on Nar Shaddaa, that was imperative. And the Embassy wouldn’t give them information on the crimes committed or who committed them that kept them from returning to Csilla. They could find another planet to call home; Hoth and Ilum had the quiet icy stillness of Csilla, Dromund Kaas and Onderon had economic possibilities, Tatooine and Telos both had sizeable alien populations where they wouldn’t necessarily be targeted. Her parents discussed the whole night about options and possibilities, running every plan through every iteration, trying to determine which one had the right ratio of risk to reward. 

“The punishment for returning back to Csilla is death, Stassun,” her mother protested, “What makes you think they’ll be merciful?”

“The Embassy won’t tell us anything,” her father argued, standing up from his chair and pacing, “Even if we can’t truly return, don’t you think we deserve to know why, Nallista?”

Her mother shook her head, “Perhaps, but is it worth risking your life for?”

Her father stopped in his tracks as if he’d had a revelation, “Yes.”

Staceasa had no desire to return to Csilla. She had no desire to return to the planet that had refused to treat her brother when they still could because they weren’t rich enough to afford treatment. As if life was a luxury, a commodity sold only to the rich. They claimed it was a matter of racial strength: those who cannot survive should not reproduce and create a weak lineage. It sounded like criminal negligence to her.

Nallista whipped her head to her daughter, looking for input, but Staceasa didn’t know what to say. Her father did deserve closure, and they weren’t going to get it here.

“Go with him, Mom,” she finally said quietly, “I’ll hold down the apartment until you return and we can find a permanent solution.”

Her mother reached across the table and held her hand gently, “I know you’re no longer a child, Staceasa, but this place isn’t safe for aliens, particularly young ones.”

Staceasa shrugged, “I’ve been running these streets for the last five years. I’ll be safe.”

Her father placed one hand on her shoulder and one of her mother’s, “Thank you, Staceasa. Csilla could use your compassion.”

Her mother sighed, “Then I guess it’s settled. Your father and I will go to the spaceport tomorrow and figure out our options to get to Csilla.”

\---

Six months later, her parents finally had the right connections and knew the right people to get them to Csilla. They had to hop to three planets in the interim, but there was a human pilot on Hoth who was bringing supplies to Csilla who wouldn’t ask questions for a large enough price.

Staceasa was fourteen when her parents left.

She never heard from them again.

\---

“Hey, Staceasa, help me with this box!” one of the Twi’leks called in Huttese.

She shot him a glance, punching the thug she had pinned to the ground before sprinting to him, “What, one box is too much for you, Plasmajack?”

“Do you even know what’s in here?” he asked with a grunt as they lifted it together.

A blaster shot fired from across the room, “Stop chatting and get over here, you lumps!” one of the blue-skinned Twi’leks called from behind one of the barriers.

“Shut up, Flash,” Staceasa replied, “Come help us if we’re going too slow for you.”

He sighed loudly, “Vette, cover me.”

“Yes, sir!”

Another round of blaster fire soared by them as Flash, Plasmajack, and Staceasa ran for the relative safety of the spaceport with their stolen goods.

Taunt and Vette were firing at their pursuers - some nasty looking Gamorreans working for Fa’athra the Hutt. 

“Hurry it up, losers!” Vette cried, “My blasters are overheating!”

Staceasa hurled one of her twin blasters in the direction of the slight blue Twi’lek, turning around and firing with her remaining pistol directly into the forehead of the nastiest of the remaining Gamorreans.

Plasmajack and Flash finally got the last of the boxes into the speeder Taunt was piloting, barely waiting for Vette and Staceasa to hop on before speeding away to their hideout, laughing the whole way as the remaining Gamorreans brayed and stomped their feet angrily.

It had been five years since Staceasa had been on her own, and she was nearly eighteen. She’d been running with the Twi’lek gang for a little over a year and a half, helping them chase down Ryloth artifacts from various scumsuckers on Nar Shaddaa. She liked working with them; they were young like she was, they were fighting for a cause, and they were good kids, all ex-slaves who wanted to do something good with their freedom. Vette was the youngest, followed by Staceasa. Plasmajack and Flash were both in their early twenties, and Taunt was a year or two older than they were. They slept together in an old abandoned cargo bay where they could keep their artifacts until a museum on Ryloth could collect it. Food was generally pretty scarce, but the company was wonderful. The Twi’leks were all so full of life and exuberance, Staceasa on more than one occasion found herself jealous of their love for life. 

Truthfully, she didn’t really know what she was doing with her life. Sure, she was still young, but the only aspirations she had were finding a hot meal for three consecutive days and surviving each day. She’d seen enough of the original group of Twi’leks shot or blown to bits or set on fire or electrocuted to last a lifetime. Watching them die while the rest scurried to safety was always the worst and left her guilt-ridden for weeks. Taunt insisted that they wouldn’t have wanted her to sacrifice the haul for their lives, but Staceasa had a hard time believing her. 

She sat opposite the fire from the three Twi’leks, listening to them regale each other with exaggerated stories and tales, with their dreams of the future, with their happiest memories. Staceasa ran her fingers absently over the locket her brother had given her before they left Csilla. It was the one thing in her possession that reminded her of who she was. She was grateful to the Twi’leks for taking her in as one of their own, for teaching her how to fight and how to shoot, for giving her a purpose, but she knew she couldn’t stay with them forever. The four of them were a family; they had a shared history that Staceasa wasn’t a part of. And she trusted each of them with her life, but she was still an outsider.

Vette reached over and touched her wrist gently, but Staceasa jumped and ripped her hand from her.

“Whoa, there,” the Twi’lek said, “I was just making sure you were okay. You dazed off for awhile there.”

She ran her hand through her short hair nervously, “Sorry. I’m okay. Just thinking.”

“About anything good?”

“Nah,” she replied with a shrug.

\---

She loved those Twi’leks as much as she was still capable of loving, but she was still afraid to love them. So when they told her they’d gotten reliable intel on a pile of artifacts on Korriban, she’d stayed behind. It was better to leave them of her own free will then walk into the den of the beasts and have them ripped from her.

She was alone again. But better for her to be alone and trust no one than have those she loved turn on her or die.

\---

She didn’t remember much of Csilla. Just that it was cold and the people there were colder. Chiss weren’t known for their compassion, eradicating weakness rather than creating strength from it; it’s how she’d ended up on this shitty Hutta moon in the first place. Nar Shaddaa seemed more home than Csilla at this point, and she’d never even had a room of her own on this stinking moon. But the streets were familiar, the folks were predictable if not friendly, and she knew her way around the cantinas. 

Csilla, on the other hand, was draped in fear, shadows, and cold. 

She was pretty sure she preferred it that way.

Staceasa threw back her drink - one of the multitudes of knockoff Corellian whiskeys - and sloshed the remaining drops around the edge of the glass. The bar was loud and crowded, the music thumping through her chest as patrons stumbled around each other in what she could only surmise was some sort of dance. She shook her head and went back to staring at her empty glass.

“You want another one of those, sweetheart?” the bartender asked casually, though he had to shout over the din to get her attention.

She shook her head, but didn’t reply aloud. 

“Alrighty, let me know if I can get anything for you.”

Staceasa took out her brother’s locket again, spinning it between her fingers as she ignored the rest of the bar. It had been seven years since he died, but she still missed him. The Twi’leks hadn’t returned in nearly a year, either, so Staceasa had assumed the worst. She missed them, too. Work was harder and harder to find for a Chiss who didn’t like to work with others. But she ran errands for a lot of non-profit emergency clinics and schools, and she was paid in food, lodging, and a warmth in her that she vaguely recognized as pride. 

She still went to the library nearly every day, but had added the target practice grounds to her circuit, spending about an hour running through obstacle courses and shooting dummies. It wasn’t so much that her errands were dangerous, but it was always good to be prepared. And it seemed to be a good thing for her grief to continue in the memory of the Twi’leks.

Staceasa was shaken from her thoughts as a tall, muscular human sidled up beside her at the bar, ordering a drink as she shifted as far away from them as possible. The human looked her up and down, but quickly went back to their own drink; Staceasa wrapped her legs around the stool she sat on.

“Ysaine Pierce!” a huge blundering Houk shouted, upending a table as he parted the crowd unceremoniously to the bar.

The human sighed and turned around, “A girl can’t get a fucking drink around here without being harassed by some d’ikut.”

Staceasa ran through her head, trying to place if she’d heard the name Ysaine Pierce before. She came up with nothing, but judging by the weapons she carried and her demeanor, she was some sort of bounty hunter. She’d said a word in Mando’a, but her accent was terrible, so she probably wasn’t Mandalorian, which was good. If there was going to be a fight between human and Houk, Staceasa would have an easier time getting out of the way of a non-Mandalorian.

“One shocking wasn’t enough for you, huh?” Ysaine taunted.

The Houk put his hand to his holster, making an obvious show of it, “I shoulda killed you for that trick.”

As much as she tried, Staceasa couldn’t keep away from the confrontation, and eventually she gave up and turned around to watch them, keeping her eyes open for any other threats in her immediate vicinity. But it seemed the Houk was alone, and Ysaine had no inclination to start an actual fight. But when the Houk threw out a lumbering leg in a kick that hit the human in the gut, sending her to the ground, Staceasa’s hand flew to her blaster.

“Maybe stay down this time,” the Houk taunted, pulling out his blaster as the crowd gasped and backed away.

Ysaine just laughed and wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her hand, “You should know me better than that by now.” 

The Houk snarled as he aimed, and Ysaine reached for some sort of stun grenade, but Staceasa was faster and shot the Houk in the knee with a single shot. Before anyone had realized what had happened, the blaster was back in her holster and the Houk was falling face first to the ground. She honestly couldn’t have said why she felt she needed to do it; this Ysaine was probably more than capable of taking care of herself, and she certainly hadn’t been afraid of the Houk. People died in bar fights all the time on Nar Shaddaa and it barely registered to Staceasa when she’d witnessed them before. But there was something about this time. Something about Ysaine maybe. Something Staceasa couldn’t put a finger on.

She flashed a glance to the human, and their eyes met for half a second before Staceasa looked back down at her drink.

The bouncers were dragging the whimpering Houk out of the bar when Ysaine sat beside her again. There was still a trail of blood on her lip, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“That was one hell of shot,” Ysaine noted, not making eye contact, but clearly talking to Staceasa.

Staceasa shrugged as Ysaine ordered her another drink and pushed it in front of her.

“My treat,” she said, “Thanks, kid.”

Staceasa looked up and met her eyes; there were wrinkles around the corners of her face, and an implant near one of her temples. The Chiss nodded silently as she took in the presence of the woman before her.

Ysaine raised one of her eyebrows and looked at her, “Are you mute, kid?”

“No. Neither am I a kid,” she corrected bitterly.

Ysaine laughed, “Well, I’m gonna need to call you something. You got a name?”

Staceasa smiled slyly, “Nlusta’ceasa’lirnimu.”

“Shit, I forgot Chiss names had so many syllables,” Ysaine muttered, “You got a shorter version of that?”

She chuckled a little and nodded, “Staceasa is usually what people call me.”

“Alright, Staceasa I can handle,” she replied with a smile, “I’m Ysaine Pierce.”

Staceasa nodded, “It’s nice to meet you, Ysaine.”

She’d hoped Ysaine might find something better to do and leave her alone to her drink, but she immediately started talking.

“So where’d you learn to shoot like that, Staceasa? I haven’t even seen a Mandalorian shoot that fast. And let me tell you, those nibrals are proud of their slow talking and fast shooting.”

Staceasa looked at her quizzically, “Your Mando’a is awful.”

Ysaine let out a bellowing laugh, putting a hand on Staceasa’s shoulder; the Chiss very quickly squirmed out of the touch. Ysaine acted as if she hadn’t noticed, but made a concerted effort not to touch her again.

“You’re not the first one to tell me that,” Ysaine replied, taking another swig of her drink, “But you’re definitely the first non-Mando to tell me that. You didn’t answer my question, though.”

Staceasa shrugged, “I read a bunch of stuff.”

Ysaine shook her head, “Nerfshit you did.”

“I may have also run with a bunch of Twi’leks who needed an extra man with a blaster.”

“So, some Twi’leks and books taught you how to quick draw and aim with pinpoint accuracy like that?”

Staceasa shrugged in reply.

Ysaine chuckled, “Come on, kid, you got a place for the night?” Upon seeing Staceasa’s look of fear and her reaction to put her hand to her blaster again, Ysaine added defensively, “Relax, I’m not kidnapping you. You saved me the trouble of cleaning up a bloody mess, I owe you more than a drink.”

Staceasa still didn’t trust her, but after spending about a week without a roof over her head, she was exhausted and could use an actual floor to sleep on. So she accepted the offer of the human and the two of them left the bar for a run-down motel not too far from them.

“It’s not much,” Ysaine said as she unlocked the door, “But it’s probably better than what you had in mind, yeah?”

Staceasa nodded.

Ysaine made her way to the refresher, “Make yourself comfortable.”

Cautiously, Staceasa climbed on the couch, crossing her legs beneath her, watching the door to the refresher. 

“You ever thought about being a bounty hunter?” Ysaine said as she exited the refresher and sat on the bed, lazily flicking through a datapad.

“I’m not going to kill people for money,” Staceasa spat.

Ysaine chuckled, “Not all bounty hunting is for heads. There are lots of lost folks in this galaxy whose families just want them home.”

Staceasa eyed her suspiciously.

“The pay is great if you’re a little morally grey,” she continued, “but it’s definitely still liveable if you need to be all upstanding and shit. And I should know.” She winked.

“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” Staceasa mumbled.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Ysaine replied with a wave of her hand, “I can show you all that easy enough.”

Staceasa pursed her lips. The idea of being a bounty hunter was distasteful, but she would be lying if she said she hadn’t considered it before. She certainly had picked up the skills - and even a few contacts - with the Twi’lek gang. And it might ease her own pain to reunite families.

“Just think it over, yeah?” Ysaine said as she turned out the light, nearly immediately snoring loudly. 

\---

She walked nearly silently through the warehouse, taking cover in the shadows whenever possible and waiting for guards to turn their backs before darting in and out of sight again. She’d been following this lead for nearly a month now, and it was going to be her last chance to nab this shipment before it was moved underground and lost for who knows how long.

Her finger rubbed the trigger on her blaster softly as she tried to calm her nerves, moving as quickly as she dared. 

When she entered the cargo bay, she stopped dead in her tracks. There were dozens of cargo bins practically overflowing with kids of all kinds of alien races. Fuck, finding her target was going to be rough in this mess. There were also a dozen guards walking in front of the cages, kicking at the kids who stuck their arms out of the bars. 

“Halt!” someone yelled, “Only authorized personnel are allowed in here, what do you think you’re doing?”

“ _ Haar’chak _ ,” she muttered, darting back into the shadows as half of the guards began to follow her.

She began to climb the nearest cargo bin, hoping she might have a better angle from up there. One of the guards had the bright idea to shoot at her, but she held on with one hand and used the other to shoot him between the eyes. The others were so horrified that they stopped for a moment, giving her enough time to scramble up the rest of the cage. The kids were simultaneously fascinated and frightened now, watching her and the guards with huge eyes or crying uncontrollably. Staceasa thought about her predicament: she’d been hired by a poor Twi’lek family to rescue their daughter from Hutt slavers. She could find the one kid and run out relatively unscathed. But there were dozens if not hundreds of kids in this one place; she couldn’t just abandon them. 

She pulled a smoke grenade out of her belt and whistled to get the attention of the guards, who assembled neatly in front of her to aim their rifles at her.

With a chuckle, she hurled the grenade at them and let a few bolts fly towards them. She hit the mark with all three shots, but there were still eight guards left, and she was running out of time. Surely, they’d already called for backup. There was an emergency lockdown button on the far side of the room that would shut the durasteel cargo bay door; it would only buy her a few minutes to get those kids out, but that was better than nothing.

She aimed for the red button and fired. Nothing happened for a moment, and she worried that she’d missed or destroyed the circuitry, but as soon as her heart travelled up to her throat, the alarms went off and the door came slamming down. She jumped backwards as it landed with a thud, but kept running to the end of the line of cages. The eight remaining guards were climbing over each other to get a shot at her, making them easy pickings for her. In eight shots, they were down and writhing in pain.

Staceasa jumped off the last of the cages and eased her landing with her jet-powered boots.

“Everyone back from the door!” she cried as she aimed her blaster for the lock. At first, the kids screamed in fear, but as she went from cage to cage, letting them spill out into the cargo bay, they realized she was there to help them.

One of the Twi’lek girls wrapped herself around Staceasa’s leg; her first reaction was to shake her off, but when she looked down at the scared girl and noticed her green skin and deep blue eyes, she immediately recognized her as the Twi’lek she was sent for.

“You’re Nala?” she asked quietly, kneeling down.

The Twi’lek nodded, and Staceasa smiled.

“Your mom and dad sent me to get you,” she reassured her gently, holstering her blaster and holding out her hands for the Twi’lek to grab. Nala didn’t reply, but she let Staceasa pick her up and put her on her shoulders. It made Staceasa incredibly uncomfortable to have someone on her, but she couldn’t risk losing the kid in the sea of hungry children.

Speaking of which, there were dozens of children aimlessly wandering the slavers’ cargo bay while there were men on the other side of the durasteel door with a plasma torch trying to get it open as they waited for the head of security to get there with the codes to reverse the emergency lockdown.

With another whistle, Staceasa got the attention of the kids, and yelled above the mechanical noises and their cries, “I need everyone to buddy up! Find a friend! We’re going to get out of here, but I need you to watch out for each other, okay?”

There was a collective nod as they all turned to the kids around them. They were all terrified, and it was like trying to herd tookas to get them into the sewer system below.

With a grunt, Staceasa pulled the cover off the drain and instructed the kids to go down and keep running until they came to a dead-end. That should buy her enough time to get down there and get her bearings. 

They went down one-by-one, and Staceasa could hear more sirens outside the building, as well as the growing sound of plasma torches on the other side of the door. She tried to get the kids to go faster, Nala still sitting patiently on her shoulders, but there were six or so who were still on their way down as the door busted open and guards came sprawling into the cargo bay.

Staceasa swore in every language she knew as she herded the stragglers down the tunnel, firing a few parting shots at the guards before she joined them. 

After that, it was only a matter of zig-zagging with the kids through the sewer system, staying safely ahead of the guards who followed them. It wasn’t exactly how she’d planned on this mission going, but when dozens of kids tumbled out of the sewer and onto the streets of lower Nar Shaddaa, Staceasa allowed herself a smile. 

Immediately, she pulled out her holocom and started making calls to find the homes of these kids.

\---

It took her three weeks and every single one of her contacts to get the families of every kid she’d rescued from the slavers, and for three weeks she did nothing but corral them, feed them, and desperately wish she had some time to herself. They’d all taken to calling her “Ceasa” - or some variation of it for the ones whose languages didn’t accommodate those sounds - and she felt every emotion she could over those three weeks. Overwhelming joy when she found the parents of one of the kids; grief when parents whose kid she hadn’t found called her; guilt when one of the kids complained to her that they were hungry when she didn’t have anything left; exasperation when they got into trouble; worry when she had to leave them alone in the hotel room she’d set up in; frustration when they didn’t remember their own names or home planets (there was grief for those traumatized kids, too). She was exhausted, but she was proud of herself. To see those kids reunited with crying parents made it all worth it.

She’d decided to celebrate as the last of them went to Ryloth with an uncle, taking her remaining credits with her to a bar nearby. She ordered another shitty whiskey and sat at the bar beside a familiar muscular human.

“Heard someone fucked up a slaver op couple weeks ago,” Ysaine said with a smile, “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Staceasa grinned, “Possibly.”

“You’re insane.”

“You’re the one who said to go into bounty hunting.”

“Yeah, I didn’t tell you to release hundreds of tiny sentients into the sewers of Nar Shaddaa and piss off a whole Hutt Clan.”

Staceasa shrugged, “It got the job done.”

Ysaine laughed and shook her head, “You’re fucking insane, Staceasa.”

The Chiss held up her glass, “I’ll drink to that.”

Ysaine laughed again as they shared a drink.

“You ever hear of the Great Hunt?”

Staceasa raised her eyebrow, “That big secret bounty chase the Mandalorians put on?”

Ysaine nodded, “Yeah. I know a guy who could use someone as crazy as you.”

“If I see any, I’ll let them know,” she replied evenly.

“I think you should do it,” Ysaine said seriously, “Guy’s name is Braden, he’s on Hutta. He needs someone good with a blaster. He’s a nut-job, but I think you two got the same sort of crazy.”

Staceasa thought for a moment, taking another sip of whiskey, “I haven’t worked with a team for a long time.”

Ysaine shrugged, “Just think about it, yeah?”

**Author's Note:**

> HUUUUUUGE shout out to Defira, who so graciously let me nab her Bounty Hunter, Ysaine Pierce!!


End file.
